Two utterly non-practical but wonderful large projects.
First - Project Hexapod:
What
Project Hexapod is a team of 19 roboticists, engineers, designers, and fabricators who are building a 4,000 pound, 18 foot diameter rideable 6-legged robot and release the designs to the world. We don’t just want to build a giant robot, we want to enable others to build giant robots. This blog is the official source for news on our efforts.
How
It turns out that when you break robots down into component pieces, they’re actually pretty easy to design and make. Each subsystem of a robot (whether we’re talking about the hydraulic, mechanical, electrical, or computational subsystem) has its own design style, fabrication or implementation gotchas, and best practices, but in general there are no particularly hard problems for relatively simple robots like hexapods. The challenge comes when you add up all the simple things and find yourself on top of a mountain of things to keep track of and do. Furthermore, there are some big systems-level decisions you have to make early and correctly, or else you’ll end up going down a path that just won’t pan out.
Our hypothesis here is that giant robots are simple enough, if you divide them up into suitably sized chunks and if you pick functional systems at the outset, to have designers, fabricators, and engineers who don’t come from a robotics background put one together with enough careful instruction and project management. We’re here to prove that there’s a whole new way of taking on giant, collaborative projects, and we’re doing it by building the coolest robot you’ve ever seen. Check out our blog for design and build updates as time goes on!
More (and lots of photos) at their blog. Go and visit - it is a fun read and they are actually building this thing as well as building many of the tools used to build it.
Second - if Project Hexapod isn't crazy enough, check out the Bug Juggler. From their Project Overview page:
BugJuggler is a 70ft tall robot that uses hydraulic cylinders to hurl cars into the sky and catch them in mid-air.
BugJuggler will use a diesel engine to generate hydraulic pressure. An operator located in the robot’s head will be able to control its motions using a haptic feedback interface connected to high-speed servo valves. Hydraulic accumulators - essentially storage batteries for hydraulic fluid - will allow for the rapid movement required for the robot to juggle cars or other large, heavy objects.
These people are at the 'investors' and 'sponsors' stage. Great vision though. Hard to know what they will do for an encore...
It requires a stabilizing foundation so forget about it walking onto the stage. Still, got to love their vision and yes, I would pay good money to see it running and a lot more to take it for a test drive for ten minutes...
